“So it was self-inflicted?”
The doctor they’d hired to replace Gloria is a small blonde woman, sort of looks a like a rat – not in an unattractive way, as far as Keller is concerned, but still, it isn’t an improvement. “You’ll have to wait for the post-mortem to be sure, but from what I can tell, judging from the depth and angle of the wound, it appears that way.”
“Jesus. Okay.” McManus rubs at his eyes. “God. I really didn’t think...did you notice anything?” He turns to Murphy, who just shakes his head. “I mean, he seemed like he was doing so well.”
“You never really know, I guess.”
“Jesus,” McManus repeats. “I mean, Beecher. After all he’s gone through and overcome, going out like this. I just don’t get it.”
Join the club, Keller thinks.
He’s perched on the edge of one of the slabs in the morgue, watching the dead and undead alike surrounding his lover’s body – ignored by all except one. Frenchie keeps looking over, little sidelong glances that finally irritate Keller enough to acknowledge.
“What do you want?”
The guy looks startled, eyes dart around the room as if making sure he’s the one being addressed.
“Yeah, you, asshole. Got something to say?”
“I wanted to say I’m sorry.” Frenchie approaches him, touching a spot on his own chest – indicating where his bullet nearly took Keller out years before. “It wasn’t meant to happen that way.”
“Oh yeah? What way was it meant to happen?”
Frenchie says nothing for a moment, then purses his lips and shakes his head. “I don’t know. Maybe there was no other way.”
“Right. Well, apology accepted.” Keller doesn’t give a shit – didn’t really at the time, either. He didn’t die, so it doesn’t matter. “You wanna make it up to me?”
“Sure. What did you have in mind?”
Keller waves his hand at the crowd. “Get these chucklefucks out of here. I need to be alone.”
We. Me and you, Tobes.
Frenchie nods, shuffles back over to the group. He mumbles something to one of the other ghosts, a balding CO riddled with gunshot wounds. After a moment, they all turn their attention on McManus, who winces in pain suddenly, rubs his forehead.
Ah. So it wasn’t Said, after all.
“Headaches again?” Murphy asks.
“Feels like it’s getting worse lately.”
“You’re worrying too much. Maybe you should take some time off.”
“Maybe I should.” McManus sighs, looks down at the slab in front of him. “Not like me being here is doing a whole lot of good.”
“Hey.” Murphy clasps his shoulder. “Shit happens, alright? It’s Oz. You can’t blame yourself.”
“Yeah, maybe.” He pauses for a moment. “Do me a favor, after I leave, go on and get Miguel out of solitary, alright? If it’s a suicide, he’s got no reason to be in there.”
“You sure? Nobody’s cleaned the cell yet. Besides, Querns said he wants him to stay there. Been too much trouble for too long, according to him.”
“Querns can suck my nuts,” McManus snaps, then winces again, taking his head in his hands. “Fuck!”
“Come on.” Murphy wraps an arm around his shoulders. “Let’s get you home.”
“Alright. Alright.” Murphy steers him towards the door, and the ghosts follow – Frenchie casts one last look at Keller, eyebrows raised questioningly, expectantly. Keller nods, and Frenchie’s face sags in relief just before he disappears. Keller blinks in surprise.
Shit, everyone’s getting out of here tonight.
Well, whatever. He still doesn’t give a shit.
They’re alone now, which is all that matters – or, as alone as they’re gonna get, anyway.
Keller hops down off the slab and approaches Toby, stepping through the body of the rat-faced woman to reach him. She shivers slightly, then continues with her notes.
Toby looks the same as he did hours before, minutes after his death, save for a slightly bluish tinge to his face, flesh chilled by a cold Keller can’t feel. His features relaxed, that constant pinched look that Keller had grown accustomed to wiped away. At peace.
Bullshit, he thinks.
“Let me tell you a story,” he says finally, breaking the silence. “It’s one I ain’t told before, to anyone.”
“When I was married to my first wife, Angelique, she got mad at me for something. Don’t remember what it was. She was screaming at me, cursing me up and down, calling me every name in the book. Saying she was gonna leave me. Started running around the house, grabbing up all her stuff, rah rah rah, you’re a bastard, Chris Keller, your mother’s a whore, you’re scum, you’re trash, the whole nine. You get the gist.
“So I’m following her all through the house, you know, come on baby, you don’t mean that, let’s just talk. Let’s just talk. And she’s saying no, no, we got nothing to talk about, this is it, it’s over. And I said nah, baby, come on. It ain’t over, let’s just calm down and sit down and talk about it. Let’s be fucking adults. And I’m following her everywhere, she keeps slamming doors in my face but she can’t get away, you know – there’s no locks in that house and not any that would hold me back anyway. I was fired up. I wasn’t gonna let her leave over some bullshit like that.
“So finally, I get her in the bedroom, and she’s up against the wall, still screaming and yelling and I say it again like baby, baby, please. Let’s talk. And you know what she does?”
He chuckles. “She takes this – I don’t even know what the hell it was, some statue or something, knick knack trash she found in a thrift store or whatever, or her grandmother gave it to her, I don’t fucking know. Whatever it was, it had some fucking weight on it. She grabs it off the dresser next to her and she takes it and she just – whack! – just smacks me upside the head with it. And I go down, right, because I sure as hell wasn’t expecting that. Probably should have been, fucking Angelique. Firecracker, that woman.
“So I’m laying there on the floor, blood pouring down my face and she storms out and I’m thinking to myself, fuck. You fucking done it now, Chris, you piece of shit. You lost her. And that? Man, that hurt worse than any pain in my head. No fucking statue or candlestick or whatever the fuck could hit me harder than knowing I let her get away.”
He pauses for a long moment, the silence rushing back in – only interrupted by the slight scratching of the doctor’s pen on her little notepad.
“But she came back,” he continues. “Not an hour later, she was back. And she’s crying, and she’s saying how sorry she is, and I say how sorry I am, blah blah blah. And she wraps my head up all nice and by the end of the night all is forgotten.
“And that’s how it’s always been, you know. That’s what love is. You do fucked up shit to each other, but at the end of the day, if you’re really meant for each other, you come back. They always do.
“Angelique, you know, she didn’t end up being the one. Or Kittie, neither. Bonnie – well, I really thought it might’ve been her. Maybe it was, or could have been, I don’t know.
“But you, Toby?” Keller leans in. “If anyone’s my soulmate – if that shit even exists – it’s you. You and I, Tobes, we’ve been through it all. Been to hell and back again and back again some more. And I’m not gonna lose you. You can run all you want but I am not letting you get away. Not now, not ever.”
He puts his hand on top of Toby’s, letting it hover just above the skin.
“That one-eyed fag can give up and head for the hills when the going gets tough, and that Islamic fuck with his Quran and his self righteous bullshit can stand outside the glass til the angels sing, but that ain’t me, Beecher. You’re mine, and I’m yours, and I’m coming for you.”
Keller closes his eyes, shutting out the sight of Toby’s corpse.
Why are you doing this?
“You remember what I told you, way back? When I confessed to that murder? Your murder?”
I would have thought that was fairly obvious.
“If you ain’t coming back here, well. I guess it’ll have to be heaven, after all.”
The tapes rewind.
Kissing Toby for the last time, right before he hurled himself off the railing. Kissing him for what Toby had thought would be the last time, right before he was paroled – Lopresti’s stick shoved into his spine. Kissing Toby for what Keller had thought would be the last time, before they shipped him off to Massachusetts – his hands cuffed behind his back.
He’d never been entirely sure how it worked, passing on – what he was meant to do. Not like there was any guidebook for this sort of thing.
Toby swerving away from his mouth to kiss the bullet wound on his chest when he got back from the hospital. Kissing at midnight New Year’s Eve, after Toby finally came to his senses, got him transferred back into his cell. Kissing Toby in the laundry room after Toby told him he loved him, the first time - before he really meant it. Before it was real.
But he’d always figured when it was time, he’d know, just like all the rest seemed to. And he does.
Sitting in the waiting area, flexing his fingers in his cast. The buzzer sounding, bars sliding open. Looking up for the first time into the eyes of the man he was destined to fall in love with, who was destined to fall in love with him.
“I’ll see you,” he murmurs.
“Chris Keller, Tobias Beecher. He’ll be your sponsor in Emerald City, he’s gonna show you the ropes.”
“God doesn’t have have the balls to keep me out.”
And just before Keller blinks out of existence, he feels Toby’s hand beneath his.